Yardley since the War
Bomb damage was widespread during the war. In terraced streets
destroyed houses have usually been restored, but there have been
many rebuildings of group and single houses in modern styles.
These have added to the jumble which is Yardley today, and which
this essay's brief summaries have necessarily simplified. On the
largest bomb-site, at the north end of Stoney Lane, two acres
of crowded terraces have been replaced by multi-storey flats and
maisonettes. The most obvious additions to the urban scene in
the early postwar years were pre-fabs, of which only one row on
Wake Green Road now survives. They were built on more than a score
of sites in Yardley, on park edges and in off-street precincts.
Where necessary, access streets were made - e.g. Brookwood Avenue,
Braceby Grove, Sunfield Grove. Pre-fabs were built on the site
of Field House Farm.
Factory development and rebuilding continued during and after
the war. Apart from infilling of the Hay Mills/Tyseley area, there
was the spectacular growth of the former Lucas Works off Spring
Road. With other factories this came to fill a wedge between Cateswell
Road and the railway line to Stratford. New industrial districts
were at Kitts Green, and Broomfield Hall (between the Grand Union
Canal and Woodcock Lane North, replaced by housing from the 1980s
onwards). The few inter-war factories off Seeleys Road have gone
or been incorporated into a new estate which filled most of the
former flood-meadows between Spark and Cole. The Aldis Works on
Sarehole Road were enlarged before being replaced by housing in
the 1980s. There are still small factories on Yardley Wood Road
at Warstock and Prince of Wales Lane. The Waterloo Brickworks
continued until the 1970s, using open-cast methods around its
great pit, but the Burbury works have been razed and the pit was
filled for Lucas extensions. Since the 1970s, as manufacturing
in general has declines, most large concerns have gone, and parts
of former industrial areas have become devoted to service and
even retail.
The Greenstead estate at Springfield was the last of the pre-war
style council estates, in the late 1930s. Multi-storey flat blocks
first appeared on the west edge of Billesley Common, on Alfred
Road, and by the Yew Tree junction. In marked contrast to the
pre-war building, there has been the greatest variation in type,
size, height, and materials, with every sort of dwelling from
bungalows to towers. Building is at higher density, gardens are
small or lacking, and garages are being provided for new and older
homes where possible. The absence of garages in older estates
has created problems: grass verges have been ruined, and on-street
parking means danger for playing children and through traffic.
In recent years Yardley village has been enlarged at last, but
the three-storey home for old people (closed at the end of the
century and replaced by more sympathetic buildings beyond the
church), and the low terraces and bungalows off Stoney Lane, do
not compete with the church tower.
Probably the most remarkable feature of Yardley from the 1960s,
though not the most apparent, has been the development of hidden
sites. This has been carried out both by the Corporation and private
builders, and is additional to the demolition of old houses such
as Coldbath and Paradise Farms, and Acocks Green House, to permit
high-density building in their grounds. On dozens of sites, unused
land, paddocks, former allotments, etc., new streets and precincts
of towers, maisonettes, bungalows and terraces, with garage rows,
have been erected. Examples of these developments were the Swanshurst
Lane Estate in Great Meadow on Coldbath Brook, Coldbath Farm,
and the Fox Hollies towers and Bordesley Green East estates. Private
estates are generally smaller but more numerous. The Coldbath
estate on Yardley Wood Road covers the site of Lady Mill: this
involved use of private land (a little-used part of Moseley golf
course). Access to some of the new private estates is often obtained
by the razing of one or two houses in enclosing streets. Factories
like the Robin Hood Works (Newey Goodman later), and the former
Electricars works on Webb Lane have also given way to housing.
Some 'system-built' inter-war estates, e.g. at Stockfield and
Gospel Lane have had to be replaced as a result of structural
defects. The density of building would horrify pre-war planners:
as this infilling continues it becomes clear that land was wasted
in the past, but equally clear that before long there will be
no unused land - and such is the pressure of population that some
designated amenity areas have not been safe: an example is the
over-building by the Corporation of Church Field and Stich Meadow.
This former public recreation ground disappeared under new streets,
towers and terraces in the late 1960s. A part of Stichford Field
beside Bordesley Green East, formerly allotments, was also privately
laid out in terraces of 'mews-type' houses. The dwindling number
of open spaces must be in ever-increasing danger, especially since
'high rise' building has lost favour and the alternative requires
more land. In addition it seems certain that whole neighbourhoods
of middle-class houses with large gardens will be cleared for
high-density development long before they need renewal. Planes
overfly areas like Hall Green and leaflet householders, inviting
them to get rid of part of their high-maintenance land in exchange
for large sums of money.
A new shopping centre, public house, and municipal baths at
Stechford brought modernity to the suburb's east edge. Glebe Farm
has its churches and community centre, and Lea Hall shopping centre
was completed. Both have libraries: Lea Hall is served by a small
library in premises at the Poolway shopping precinct. This ambitious
structure, built round a traffic-free square, has a large car-park.
But it is cut off despite the footbridge later provided from half
its customers by the dual carriageway Meadway, which continues
the route from Bordesley Green to Tile Cross. Behind the great
blocks of flats which border it is Kents Moat Park: the ancient
Pool Road, the Yardley-Sheldon boundary, has been obliterated
across it.
Many roads remain much as they were in 1939. The extension
of Highfield Road across the Cole was improved by the replacement
of the humped bridge in 1986. Priory Road has been made as a dual
carriageway almost to the Solihull boundary. A direct crossing
from Walford Road to Stoney Lane over Stratford Road has been
made, but the difficult intersections on Warwick Road cause increasing
delays. On Coventry Road, where the third Swan went up (replaced
by offices in the 1990s), the 1960s underpass is part of the racetrack
that Coventry Road became in the early 1980s, as half of Hay Mills'
shops were destroyed to make a multi-lane highway, punctuated
with sets of traffic lights where drivers wait impatiently. Wherever
radial and circular traffic meet - nearly always at the heaviest-parked
areas, the shopping centres - congestion can last all day. Supermarkets
have more recently been built, with much-needed parking space:
the first was at Green Bank, Hall Green.
Hall Green also acquired a library, Technical College, and
a Bilateral School in the 1960s. Six other new schools were built
by the 1970s, notably the former Grammar and Bilateral Schools
at Swanshurst, later combined and now apparently the biggest secondary
school in Europe. A number of secondary schools in Sheldon provide
for many children of Church End Quarter. Pitmaston school closed
after periods as secondary and primary, and more recently Yardleys
school moved away from its older sites to modern buildings amongst
factories. The manor which was once a single Anglican parish is
now shared by nearly 20, and there are now scores of places of
worship of all denominations and religions. One of the newest
Anglican churches is that of St. Peter's Hall Green (1964), prominent
on the skyline from the west.
All of the cinemas have closed: two in Hall Green were replaced
by supermarkets (Rialto and Robin Hood) one by a car showroom
then furniture shop (Springfield), two others survive as a factory
(Tyseley) and a Bingo ball (Atlas), while the demolished Tivoli
gave its name to a huge multi-purpose development at the Swan
junction, including flats, towers, and shops. The Adelphi at 'South
Yardley' is a Sikh community centre, and the Warwick at Acocks
Green is a bowling alley and laser-combat business. Hall Green
Little Theatre at Fox Hollies is Yardley's first purpose-built
example, an amateur achievement built on the site of a wartime
water-tank (a number of church halls are of course equipped as
theatres). The proliferation of filling-stations, car-sales firms,
radio/TV shops, launderettes and betting-shops, were the most
notable changes along the main roads, but filling-stations are
now closing in alarming numbers. Large numbers of pubs, especially
the larger inter-war roadhouses, have been razed for housing or
other commercial use: this is probably the most surprising development
of the years around the Millennium. Yardley Wood, for example,
now has no pubs at all - the nearest, the Prince of Wales, is
actually in Solihull. Perhaps the greatest architectural loss
was the Good Companions on Coventry Road, which had fine art deco
decoration. A notable and very welcome addition is the Fox Hollies
Leisure Centre, with modern swimming pool and sports halls (1986).
There are four police stations in Yardley, at Billesley, Sparkhill,
Acocks Green and Stechford, and two fire stations: Brook Lane,
and Tyseley, which replaced Acocks Green's small station on Alexander
Road in 1993. Nearly a dozen clinics for child welfare were conveniently
situated throughout the District in the 1960s, but rationalisation
has affected them and G.P. surgeries, so that they are now fewer
and less convenient. The Women's Hospital closed in the 1990s,
and has since been boarded up. Public transport was declining:
there were 22 bus routes in the 1960s and some suburban train
services from Stechford, Tyseley and Acocks Green, but Lea Hall
Station was closed, and passenger services on the Stratford line
were under threat for a long time. Bus deregulation has brought
about something of a renaissance in public transport, and suburban
rail appears to have a brighter future.
There are each year fewer relics of any century older than
the nineteenth: 'the past around us' is coming increasingly to
mean mainly mid-Victorian villas. Blakesley Hall, restored after
wartime damage, and again around 1980 and from 1999-2002, is a
very fine branch museum. Sarehole Mill was near ruin, but was
saved for rural crafts and industry exhibitions and demonstrations
of corn-grinding: it is Yardley's sole surviving
working watermill. The only other working mill in the city is at New Hall, in
Sutton. Restoration was completed in 1969: over 30
years later its connection with Tolkien is at last being fully
exploited. In the same year Yardley village was declared a Conservation
Area by the city, and through-traffic ceased in 1976, earning
the village the designation 'Outstanding' from the Historic Buildings
Council. However other buildings were not so lucky: for example
the half-timbered Fieldgate Farm in Acocks Green, which was demolished
despite protests in the late 1970s. Since the 1980s, however,
there has been a new interest in archaeology and conservation.
Bronze Age burnt mounds (probably prehistoric saunas) have been
discovered in Fox Hollies Park. At the other end of the spectrum
the Arts and Crafts environs of St. Agnes church were declared
a Conservation Area, and in Hall Green School Road and Miall Road,
together with the pub and shops, were declared a 1930s conservation
area in 1988. The Coleside walkway is not only an amenity for
walkers, but land management seeks to enhance the wildlife diversity
as well. The fords in Hall Green have been bollarded to deter
cars, and footbridges continue in use. Another former industrial
site, now open to leisure use, is the Grand Union Canal. Towpaths,
which used to be private industrial walkways, became overgrown
and neglected after diesel engines superseded horses, but decades
of pressure have finally resulted in new leisure uses not only
for the water but also for the linear walkways that the towpaths
provide.
Yardley's inhabitants have increased since the war far beyond
the numbers who occupy new homes; it is impossible to estimate
how many of the older and larger houses and some less ancient
are in multi-occupation. The tenants of the usually inconvenient
and ill-provided new flats included not only the ever-younger
married couples of local origin, but incomers from overseas -
Asians and West Indian in Sparkbrook, Acocks Green, Stechford
and Hay Mills, and Irish in Sparkhill, where a powerful Catholic
church and community were the attraction. From the 1970s onwards
huge sums of public money were spent bringing the infrastructure
of the inner-city suburbs back to a reasonable standard. Shops
and places of worship sprang up to serve these communities, creating
among other things a nationally famous Asian restaurant culture:
the 'Balti Belt'. Since the 1980s, ethnic minority families and
their Birmingham-born and bred children and grandchildren have
been moving out from the inner-city suburbs into once homogenous
areas like Hall Green. In the 1980s, in Hall Green and parts of
Acocks Green, there were very high numbers of old people: the
population is now becoming younger as well as more diverse as
older residents have died or moved away into sheltered accommodation
and families have taken their place. The pressure on existing
communications and services is ever greater: in the last ten years
the far-sighted road improvements made between the wars have finally
been overwhelmed by traffic, and it is now the outer-city suburbs
that need huge investment in remedial infrastructure works. These
days Yardley must house and service people at a density one hundred
times that of a century and a half ago.
In the 21st century, Yardley has no significance as a geographical
or demographic unit: it has become submerged in the rest of the
city, with workers and materials and products moving on wheels
in all directions in ever-growing congestion. Its diversity of
industry, shops, amenities, housing and people becomes greater
every year. Its individuality was never great, and it was always
affected by its awkward shape, its location across lines of communication
and its nearness to Birmingham. The tiny village centre about the
ancient church is not enough to sustain a sense of identity with
the whole former Manor and Parish, especially as other less historic
centres within the larger unit came to eclipse it in importance
over a century ago.
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